The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Thursday, August 11, 1887. “STINKING FISH.”

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 26, 11 August 1887, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Thursday, August 11, 1887. “STINKING FISH.”

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, Thy God’s, and truth’s.

A fish hawker who bawled out “ stinking fish ” for sale would be looked upon as little short of a consummate ass, and rightly so ; and yet at the present time there is a certain section of the people ot this colony and a very large section of the newspaper writers who are crying “ stinking fish ” as loudly and persistently as they can. We are told evety day that the colony is, metaphorically speaking of course, going rapidly to the devil, that trade is being ruined, that our credit at Home has gone for ever, that if things continue as they are now, repudiation is within measurable distance, etc., etc. All round the colony a lot of puling, pusillanimous pessimists are chanting this dreary cry of “ stinking fish," not bravely meeting the evils patiently and quietly, but doing their utmost to trumpet them forth for the benefit of other colonies and the outside world generally. Could anything be more absurd, more ridiculous, more wicked.

That the colony is in a depressed state is perfectly true, but every new country has had a period of depression, aye, depression twenty times as severe as this from which we are suffering. But the colony is far from being so badly off as some would think. With the tens of millions of acres of fertile lands still unoccupied, the untold millions of mineral wealth lying undeveloped for lack of capital and, with one of the grandest climates in the world, New Zealand has a great and glorious future before her, let the pessimists say what they will.

Here are no great droughts as on the parched plains of New South Wales and Queensland, here are no six or seven months of frost and snow as in dreary Manitoba, no fevers and pestilence as in England's tropical colonies, or aggravated native troubles as in South Africa. Advantages we have many over other countries where Britain’s sons have made their homes, and of those ad, vantages let us make the best use. What we want is capital, and the continual morepork chorus of “The country is ruined, etc., etc.,” is the very thing to keep capital from being brought here. People howl away at Vogel as being the cause of the low quotations of the New Zealand stock in the London Stock Exchange, but if it had not been for him, there would have been no New Zealand Stock at all. There is depression all over the world just now and our Stock has decreased in value in company with that of others, but the fall in value has been more with us than those of the Australian Colonies for the simple reason that we are constantly crying ,“ stinking fish.” When New South Wales was in the worst of financial holes a year or so ago with about a million and a half deficit, did we find Sir Henry Parkes and Mr Dailey, or the Sydney Morning Herald making flaming speeches and publishing sensational articles about the approaching ruin ? Not a bit of it ; they were too cute to cry “ stinking fish.” Men like Ormond and Bryce and Hall are constantly harping upon this theme “ depression,” and instead of trying their utmost, as honest politicians, to remove t , are simply using it as a convenient jstalking horse to attack their political .opponents. The Press, or we should say. a certain section of it, also deserve great discredit for the way in which every prominence is being given to damaging statements as to the prosperity of the Colony, statements which are eagerly seized upon by our detractors at Home a much more numerous class than the public think of.

Surely it is bad enough to have an atrabilious Ananias like Froude printing his literary libels on the Colony without seeing journalists, who gain their living in the Colony, following his lead and circulating the inost imbecile inaccuracies as to our financial standing. The Colony is a good enough place to live in for anybody, better than many other colonies. Let us give it a little time for th* due development of its vast agricultural and mineral wealth, let us strive bravely to redeem the mistakes of the past, and above all cease to echo this miserable cry of “ stinking fish,” and We shall yet see the temporary tide of depression pass quietly away and a new era of wealth and prosperity set in. But for God’s sake, don’t let us keep on crying “ stinking fish.”